Читать книгу The Man with the Wooden Spectacles - Harry Stephen Keeler - Страница 9

CHAPTER VI

“Consultation Only!”

Elsa Colby was so small—at least as compared to the giant quilt cover which, on its slightly inclined rack, covered almost one wall of her cramped office—and which office, fortunately for its own size, was never crammed with clients and seldom with even client!—that at times she had to mount a small stubby stepladder stool to ply her skillful needle. The bright red of Elsa’s hair—made even brighter, seemingly, by its contrast with the knitted mouse-grey one-piece dress that she wore—was of the exact color as the great scarlet poppies which lay at each corner of the quilt; her blue eyes were precisely the blue of the pond which lay in its middle—at least of the one experimentally completed ripple on that pond; and the freckles on her face—and most particularly on her nose—were like—but no, they were not like anything on the quilt proper at all, but were like the spattering of brown ink from an angry fountain-pen on a sheet of white paper.

Her quilt, it might be said, lay exposed in entirety upon its huge rack for the simple reason that it held, here and there, throughout its entire area, certain flecks which must be done in green; and Elsa, having been able to pick up a huge amount of green silk thread—but green only!—at a discount, had to do that color first, and fully, just as independent shoestring movie producers, with little or no money to rent locations or to put up settings, have to complete, in one rented setting, all the scenes for two or more “quickies,”—before negotiating a new setting!

But though secondhanded the old step-ladder stool was—it had cost only 18 cents on West Madison Street—and rickety as it was to boot, Elsa made quite no strain on it what­soever—for the reason that she was but 90 pounds in weight —95 normally, but the 20-cent meals at the Two Sisters Restaurant were notoriously shy of nutriment!

It might be said that only in the matter of the lettered door of her tiny front office on the 10th story of the ancient Ulysses S. Grant Building, the latter not a part of Chicago’s Loop, but a barnacle clinging hungrily on the dingy outskirts of that Loop, did Elsa present any “professional front.” Unless, perhaps, one included the special typewriter-desk standing to the right of Elsa’s own desk, with its battered electric typewriter plugged into the wall back of it by a long cord, the machine suggesting that it regularly turned out scores of important legal briefs, and the former that a paid steno­grapher—at some mysterious hours unknown!—held vigil here. To be sure—typewriter desk or no typewriter desk—the row of law books over Elsa’s own desk looked heavy enough to weigh a successful lawyer down. But the typewriter desk itself was one that had been scornfully left behind in that office when Elsa had moved in; the typewriter itself—and which Elsa always affectionately called Old Million-Words-a-Minute—was no other than a most “lucky” purchase at an unclaimed goods sale wherein the auctioneer, a friend of Elsa’s, had put the machine up at auction, in front of her alone, 5 minutes before the auction began; the office itself cost only $9 a month—too much, in fact, for a site in which to do quilt embroidering—and the door of the office read, outside:

ELSA COLBY

Attorney-at-Law

(Criminal Law)

Consultation ONLY

Elsa, this day, had just completed a single leaf of those several million green leaves yet to be done, and had climbed off her stool to survey it from a distance—when her phone rang.

She did not answer it immediately, however, for her point of surveyal of her quilt happened to be alongside her one broad window and her surveyal thereof had transferred itself instead fascinatedly to the street far below where some kind of local political parade was going by, the band music coming up almost thread-like through the glass pane of the window, the obviously green-coated musicians seeming, from above, like small green rectangles mathematically spaced apart, and all flowing onward in unison—and a real elephant!—Repub­lican, therefore, that parade!—looking, from above, like some strange grey wobbling paramecium—and scarcely any big­ger! From the old-fashioned windows of the 9-story Printo­graphy Building across the way, ink-smeared printers’ devils were leaning out and gesticulating to each other—and Elsa, who loved elephants passionately—even when shrunken a hundredfold as was this one!—was assuredly just now torn between love and business!

But the parade suddenly and unexpectedly rounded the corner of VanBuren Street—and the elephant-paramecium, seen thus in perspective, developed two moving cardboard legs—then all was gone. And the phone was still ringing!

And so now, curiously, Elsa answered it—curiously, be­cause Elsa had no clients; though, to be sure—and strange to say—she really desired none—for a while. Unless perchance, they were such as wanted to pay one—two—three dollars for advice.

The voice on the other end of the wire was judicial, dignified, ultra-legal, grave and, so it occurred to Elsa, cold.

“Am I speaking—to Miss Elsa Colby?”

“Why yes—yes. This is Elsa Colby—speaking.”

“Ah—how do you do, Miss Colby? This is Judge Pen­worth, Miss Colby. Judge Hilford Penworth.”

“Judge—Penworth? Oh yes, yes. Judge Penworth—who has not been actively engaged on the Bench—for some time?”

“Yes, Miss Colby. Yes. But not retired—by no means! Well, Miss Colby, what I’m calling up about—but how are you feeling?”

“How—am I—feeling?” Elsa was surprised at this interest in her health. “Why—I’m feeling fine,” was all she could say.

“And not ailing—hrmph—as is vice-Treasurer Colby of the United States Treasury?”

“Oh—Mr. Fenby Colby? Oh, yes, I did read that he was ill. Why no, Judge Penworth—indeed no. I’m not related to Fen­by Colby. And as for ailing—well—I haven’t even a cold.”

“That is excellent, Miss Colby. Well, Miss Colby, I’ll make brief—what I called you up about. There is to be a trial—for murder—larceny included, too—to be held tonight at my home—8 p.m. The details as to the trial you could get from the State’s Attorney’s office—the facts, from the early papers just out—and some, no doubt, from the defendant himself, one John Doe—under arrest since noontime, and now being held by the State’s Attorney in his incommunicado tier. I make the latter statement because I am appointing you to defend Doe tonight.”

“Defend—Doe—tonight?” ejaculated Elsa, utterly aghast. “Defend—but Judge Penworth, I—I am a consulting attorney only. I—I don’t want any court cases. I—”

“Miss Colby, you are an attorney—admitted to the Cook County Bar—are you not?”

“Yes, Judge, I am admitted. But—”

“All right. You are appointed, now and herewith, to defend this fellow Doe. And—”

“But—but Judge Penworth, he—whoever he is—would never go to trial so quickly. It will be a matter of months of preparation. And—”

“No? Well, it may interest you, Miss Colby, to know that he has signed all the necessary waivers by which he can have immediate trial. And is putting his fate before me—without a jury—at 8 o’clock tonight—and getting it over with. And so I have appointed you his defense counsel, and the fee—”

“But Judge—I mean Your Honor—I—I don’t want the fee. I—I don’t need the fee. I—I have an inheritance coming to me in a few ye—I mean I—I just today found a lot of money I’d saved up, in—in an old mattress. And some other lawyer—”

“Miss Colby.” The voice was hard and ultra-judicial. “Did you hear me say—I had appointed you?”

“Yes.” Elsa’s words tumbled desperately forth now. “But Judge, I—I am ill—that is, I’m sure I am, so—which means that—”

“That will do, Miss Colby!” The voice was just a bit wrathful. “You assured me, before this conversation began, that you never felt better in your life. Now I have—at least so I hope—a judicial mind—so far as any defendant’s rights go. But I assuredly trust that you won’t start right off—on the very word ‘go’—by antagonizing me against your client’s case—and before he even comes up before me. I have appointed you herewith to represent him—though, from what little I gather, he might better have pleaded guilty. Be that as it may, the best thing you can do, Miss Colby, is to hop over to the Grand Jury chambers, in the next 30 minutes and get from the clerk a copy of the indictment against the defen­dant—which indictment the defendant will have petitioned—then over to the State’s Attorney’s lockup—find out all you can from the client—and at least try to clear him. After all, you know, whether you clear him or don’t clear him, the fee comes to you just the same, and—”

“Fee? I—I don’t want the fee,” protested Elsa. “I—you see, I—I don’t take clients for court cases, Judge Penworth. I am a consult—”

“You are taking the case of John Doe,” said Judge Penworth. And never had Elsa heard such quiet, stubborn do­mination in a human voice. “And now I bid you goodday—”

“Wait, Judge! I refuse—”

And now the voice on the other end, as Elsa knew from considerable experience with persons with high blood pres­sure, was that of a man clearly close to an apoplectic outburst. For its owner practically shouted into his transmitter.

“That’ll—that’ll do, Miss Colby! I’m calling Sam Gurley, the State’s Attorney’s special lockup keeper, the minute I hang up here, and telling him you’re this man’s lawyer—tentatively, anyway! And if, by heavens, I hear you haven’t reported to Gurley as Doe’s attorney, and properly identified yourself, moreover, as yourself—by 5 o’clock—and to Doe himself as well—yes, I give you till 5 o’clock!—and not one second longer!—I shall forward, under the rights now granted me by the Cook County Bar Association, a disbarment order against yourself from practicing at the bar in Cook County. A disbarment order which I shall fill out immediately this conversation is terminated. And—”

Disbarment!

Elsa caught her breath sharply. And actually paled.

“Dis—disbarment—Judge? But—”

“Yes,” he snapped, still plainly choleric, “that’s—that’s exactly what I said. Disbarment—if you haven’t reported to that client by 5! And just—just you keep this in mind too, Miss Colby: that order will be kept close to my elbow—and if, reporting to that fellow, you fail later to report in court—and I—I have to call in some other attorney the last minute—that order will go straight as an arrow to—to where it will become immediately effective.”

“But—but, Judge,” Elsa almost wailed, “you—you don’t understand! You see, I don’t want any cases, lest I—”

“Five p.m.!” The Judge’s voice was not choleric now, but deadly, quietly ominous. “5 p. m.—or that disbarment order, young lady, dated 5 p.m. today, will go forth by both phone and messenger—to its proper destination. Five p.m.”

“But—but, Judge, I—”

But nothing but the echo of an angry savage click—followed by deep silence—greeted Elsa on the instrument.

The Judge, irately, had hung up!